141 Model Aviation DECEMBER 2015
www.ModelAviation.com
Lachenmayer and his cadets from the
Civil Air Patrol (CAP) squadron NER-
CT-071-Royal Charter. The event
took place at the Hartford-Brainard
Airport in Hartford, Connecticut. Club
president and AMA associate vice
president, Tom Rocheleau, provided
the following report:
“We were thrilled and honored
to host this group of young adults
already seeking to serve the public by
enlisting in the CAP. This was a perfect
opportunity to introduce cadets to the
AMA and aeromodeling technology.

“Six cadets and their senior leadership
spent the day at the club. They were
given ground school safety training and
basic flight instruction on simulators.
They were then assigned to a flight
instructor and had a chance to fly club
trainers, taking turns on both electric
and nitro-powered aircraft. The cadets’
knowledge of full-scale aircraft and
flying made their transition to RC flying
that much easier.

“After a cookout, the cadets were
introduced to different configurations of
multirotor aircraft and told about their
real-world applications in videography,
cinematography, infrastructure
inspection, security, precision
agriculture, and search-and-rescue
operations. Club member Ron Nadeau
volunteered to do this presentation
and explained how he built his 3-D
Robotics X8 octocopter. He answered
questions about each of its components
for power, thrust, navigation, control
systems, and its sensors for data and
image collection and video display.

“Before the presentation, Ron hid
a rescue beacon in the club’s field. A
laptop computer, utilizing mission-planner software, allowed Ron to work
with the cadets to program an array of
waypoints in a gridlike flight plan. This
was done over a Google Earth image
of the club’s flying site displayed on a
video monitor.

“The waypoints were transmitted to
Ron’s multirotor autopilot controller,
allowing it to autonomously navigate
the entire field area. Its onboard camera
transmitted video images to the ground
station receiver monitor, where the
cadets anxiously watched the video to
locate the beacon.

“After a number of passes over the
field, the beacon location coordinates
were identified and it was retrieved. Of
all of the day’s activities, this simulated
search-and-rescue mission impressed
the cadets the most. It definitely
demonstrated the good tasks multirotors
or drones are capable of doing.

“The cadets and their leaders thanked
us for a great National Model Aviation
Day experience. Club members were
thrilled to introduce the cadets to RC
aeromodeling and look forward to
forming a more permanent relationship
with CAP cadets.”
Thanks Tom, Ron, and club members
for this unique celebration of model
aviation.